I love West Indies. They made me fell in love with cricket. For many years, until they were severely waned in the mid 90s, they were synonymous with Cricket to me.
I’m not mad because we are losing or losing to West Indies. We lost all too often. But after 20 years we haven’t learned the basics of test cricket. And this lot is obscenely paid too. The bloody, fucking T20 has ruined whatever progress we made.
One wicket remaining.
Good on the Windies. And have to emphasize the fact that this was not even their full strength team.
Introspection needed for Bangladesh if they are losing to this windies team in home.
No disrespect to windies intended.
Root’s shoelace was offside though.
Does anyone else find the constant banal chirping of the two wicketkeepers intensely irritating… 
The chirping of the commentators comparing Foakes and Buttler is even worse.
If England get more than 200 in the second innings it’ll be a miracle. A couple of them need to make a score; Burns, Lawrence, Pope all need to show they can handle a situation like this. There’s no pressure in terms of the result, so time to dig in and show some mettle.
That’s just wicketkeepers in general. I know one in particular who’s probably still contemplating what a nauseating colander is.
The wicket seems to be fine. I mean if Virat with his well publicized weakness to spin bowling and Ashwin could score half centuries , No reason to blame the wicket.
Kohli is one of the top five batsmen in the world. He should be able to get 50 on any wicket. Some batsmen have got in and done well, but others have looked shaky. The difference is the spin bowling. India have top class spinners operating in conditions they know well, England have mediocre spinners, and even they have bowled the occasional unplayable delivery.
He’s got a weakness in picking spinners from the hand. A very non subcontinental batsman he’s right now.
great knock by ashwin.
I’d like to think that Ashwin hitting 108 shows that the pitch is getting flatter… 
Loads of time left in the game. May as well try and make the most of it and bat for as long as possible.
Think it has gotten a bit flatter but way too much has been made of the puffs of dust. The pitch by and large has been fine. I’m okay with excessive spin on the wicket as long as the wicket doesn’t keep low or rear up uncomfortably off of a good length.
Not a fan of the Indian board firing the curator though.
Agree, that was a cunt’s move.
Yeah, sharp spin is fine, it’s the variable bounce that can make a pitch unplayable. Some of the spinners I faced when I was playing could turn it a vicious amount, that was always a really enjoyable challenge. Did one of the part-time spinners turn one ball loads this match? Was it Lawrence?
Anyway, I just want England to show a bit of application in this fourth innings.
Edit: 6 for 0 after 2 overs. So far so good. 
Sibley goes.
Root survived an lbw on umpire’s call
The ball was adjudged to have hit him in line with off stump but in the margin that belongs to the umpire.
However, I think DRS is wrong here. They take the line as being from the middle of the ball to the middle of the off stump. If the line from the middle of the ball is to the left of the middle of the off stump it’s umpire’s call. But to me they should draw the line not from the middle of the ball but from the point of impact of ball and pad.
In the image above it’s clear that the line in which the ball impacts the pad is well within the line of the middle of off stump. As many have said on twitter, it’s the most plumb lbw I’ve ever seen not given out on review.
I agree with what you’re saying that it looks lbw, but if you relax the boundary of where the impact is in relation to the stumps, then I feel there will be too many negative downstream effects.
At the moment, I feel the balance is mostly right between the tech giving it out and the uncertainty region that is the umpire’s call.
I agree with there being a margin of error or tolerance where the decision is umpire’s call. 100%. Both in recognition that the system cannot claim to be 100% accurate but also to keep the human element of the game.
However, for me, the issue with LBW is where to draw the line at the point that the ball hits the pad. To me it makes no sense to draw the line from the middle of the ball, it ought to be drawn from where the ball itself actually makes contact with the pad. That is where the ball has “hit” the batter, not a few centimetres to the left where the middle of the ball (which hasn’t hit the batter) is found.
By all means ensure that this line itself falls within the line drawn from the middle of off-stop to take it outside of the margin for umpire’s call but that is all the tolerance this needs for that aspect of lbw. Where the ball pitches is different, because the ball obviously lands on its middle so using the middle of the ball for that line is fine. That’s not the case with where the ball hits the pads. It is the “point of impact” that counts, not where the middle of the ball is at that point.
This is the lbw rule:
36.1 Out LBW
The striker is out LBW if all the circumstances set out in 36.1.1 to 36.1.5 apply.
36.1.1 The bowler delivers a ball, not being a No ball
36.1.2 the ball, if it is not intercepted full-pitch, pitches in line between wicket and wicket or on the off side of the striker’s wicket
36.1.3 the ball not having previously touched his/her bat, the striker intercepts the ball, either full-pitch or after pitching, with any part of his/her person
36.1.4 the point of impact, even if above the level of the bails,
either is between wicket and wicket
or if the striker has made no genuine attempt to play the ball with the bat, is between wicket and wicket or outside the line of the off stump.
36.1.5 but for the interception, the ball would have hit the wicket.
36.2 Interception of the ball
36.2.1 In assessing points in 36.1.3, 36.1.4 and 36.1.5, only the first interception is to be considered.
36.2.2 In assessing point 36.1.3, if the ball makes contact with the striker’s person and bat simultaneously, this shall be considered as the ball having first touched the bat.
36.2.3 In assessing point 36.1.5, it is to be assumed that the path of the ball before interception would have continued after interception, irrespective of whether the ball might have pitched subsequently or not.
36.3 Off side of wicket
The off side of the striker’s wicket shall be determined by the striker’s stance at the moment the ball comes into play for that delivery. See Appendix A.13.
If you are going with technology , go with it fully and scrap the umps call altogether.
I put this point fwd in football where i noted that too often is umps call being used to save substandard umpires and not for the purpose of making the right decision…
There was a decision earlier where rohit didnt offer a shot and the umps call was that he offered a shot. That was a shit one. I’d like those umps to be brought to task